Animals I have had actual encounters with in the wild:
- a tiger (did not see, but heard it growl)
- a pack of stray dogs in Greece
- a very big and scary dog in Tibet
- a very well-fed and sedate crocodile
- a rhino making noise outside my hut
- many, many monkeys over the years
also a sloth bear, though my guide was quite concerned it just sat there.
I guess the crocodile(s) weren't really wild. But they were big.
The US reported +660 new coronavirus deaths yesterday, bringing the total to 636,298. The 7-day moving average rose to 537 deaths per day,
The US reported +143,537 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, the highest number since January 30, bringing the total to over 37.2 million. The 7-day moving average rose to 125,557 new cases per day.
New hospital admissions in the US due to COVID-19 rose +29.6% from a week ago.
We stopped today to visit the Frontier Army Museum at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Though the museum is open to the public, it took a bit of time to apply for a security pass to get onto what still is a very active military post.
The fort was originally founded in 1827 by Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who was ordered to secure a base on the western bank of the Missouri River to protect the Santa Fe Trail into Mexico.
Throughout the 19th Century, Fort Leavenworth served as the critical logistics base for western expansion, whether into Mexico or across to Oregon, or to support the military actions against the Indian tribes in-between.
A visit to the TWA Museum today at the airline's former corporate headquarters at Charles B. Wheeler Airport just outside of downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The propeller of a Ford Trimotor flown by Charles Lindbergh to promote TWA in its early days in Kansas City.
A wicker chair that served as a First Class seat in a TWA Ford Trimotor. This particular chair was sat in by Amelia Earhart, hired to promote the airline to women.
President Harry Truman's boyhood home in Independence, Missouri. Now, I believe, a private residence.
Just a few blocks away, Truman's home after he was married. And which he used as his "Summer White House" from 1945 to 1953. Sadly closed due to COVID, so we'll have to come back someday to see inside.
Ready to depart along the Oregon Trail from its starting point at Independence, Missouri.
For the next two weeks, this will be the route my son and I will follow (with the exception of a short trip tomorrow up to St. Joseph, the other starting point for the Trail).
The county courthouse in Independence, Missouri - the central portion of which was built in 1836 - was the gathering point for wagon trains leaving along the Oregon Trail, which began in 1843.
Inside the American Jazz Museum, Kansas City, Missouri.
Monument to jazz musician Charlie Parker, a native of Kansas City, outside the American Jazz Museum.
Inside the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, next door to the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, telling the story of Black baseball stars in a segregated America.